Shows a cup and pin game of the Native American Sioux . The game has a metal pin, small bone cups, rawhide, a loop and pink, red, white and blue beadwork.

Date

[between 1860 and 1880]

Notes

"Ta-siha un'pi, Game with hoofs of a deer. -- They string several deer hoofs together and throw them suddenly upward. They jerk them back again by the cord to which they are attached, and as they fall the player who has a sharp-pointed stick tries to thrust it though the holes of the hoofs, and if he succeeds he counts the number of hoofs through which his stick has gone. A number of small beads of various colors are strung together and attached to the smallest hoof at the end of the string. When a player adds a bead to those on the string he has another chance to try his skill in piercing the hoofs. When one misses the mark he hands the hoofs, etc. to the next player.; Accession ID: E.1821; History Colorado.; Curatorial note supplied by History Colorado: "This cup and pin game closely resembles the Brule and Oglala (Sioux) cup and pin games described and pictured in Steward Culin's BAE Accompanying paper entitled "Games of the North American Indians" [Twenty-Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1902-1903, by W.H. Holmes, chief. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1907:1-810.] The Brule cup and pin game pictured on page 556 of Culin's paper is described and pictured as a string of five worked phalangeal bones of deer, on a thong, to the end of which a needle is attached. "They are used only by women. The bones are swung in a circle very rapidly and caught upon the pin, which in ancient times was made of bone."; Each one tries to send his stick through more hoofs than did his predecessor. Two sides are chosen by the players. Each player offers articles as stakes for the winner. The season for playing is not specified. The women, when they play this game, bring their husbands' goods without the knowledge of the owners, and sometimes lose all of them. When the men play, they sometimes stake all of their wives' property, and occasionally they lose all. Now and then this game is played just for amusement, without any stakes." See pages 555 through 557 for fuller discussion and illustrations regarding the cup and pin game among the Sioux. During the January 1998 NAGPRA Sioux consultation held at CHS, Zona Loans Arrow (Standing Rock Sioux) indicated that this is not Sioux but Lakota."; Object ID: E.1821.1; Scanned image from loaned transparency including Object ID.; The Oglala cup and pin game is described as "Six phalangeal bones of deer strung on a thong 11 inches in length, with a brass needle, five inches in length, attached at one end of the thong, and seven loops of variegated glass beads at the other end. The bones are fluted at the upper edge, except the one nearest the needle, which has small holes around the edge [of the smallest bone.] They were made by Winyahopa, Elegant Woman and collected by Mr. Louis L. Meeker, who describes it as an implement for the woman's game of tasiha." Rev. J. Owen Dorsey describes the following as a game played by boys, younger married men, or women among the Teton (Sioux):; Title supplied.; R7200029014